In the field of motor vehicles, and particularly in the production of engines, the state of the art covers the testing of the engines in order to verify their performance under conditions which substantially reproduce actual working conditions.
The tests are performed in the appropriate rooms, at least partly insulated from the outside environment and which comprise at least a test bench.
In the state of the art, the tests are usually done in the appropriate rooms, built of brickwork, inside the production plants and used specifically for that purpose.
The equipment to support the engine which has to be tested is installed inside the test rooms, as is the relative brake and anything else necessary for the test.
The test rooms are also connected to pipes which remove the heat generated by the engine and which create an at least partial recycling of the air, with pipes to discharge the exhaust fumes and pipes for the water supply, and also the necessary cables for the electric power supply, for the acquisition of the measurement signals and everything else that is necessary to carry out the tests.
The solution known to the state of the art, with rooms built of brickwork, involves a plurality of disadvantages.
In the first place, these rooms require the substantially definitive use of an area specifically prepared for the purpose, with the consequent problems of the large space occupied, the building and maintenance costs, the need to excavate foundations and civil works and other problems.
Moreover, the presence of brick buildings creates a considerable rigidity as concerns the possibility of carrying out modifications in the lay-out of the plant, which can be made only by means of demolition and consequent reconstruction.
Furthermore, the brickwork solutions of the state of the art make it substantially impossible to verify the performance of the engine in conditions similar to real operating conditions; this is because it is impossible to recreate, inside brickwork rooms, conditions which reflect actual working conditions as regards thermodynamics, humidity, pressure, and air-flows.
All these factors, apart from causing considerable costs and operating difficulties, causes a considerable lengthening of the times required to carry out the tests, which, moreover, are not completely reliable.
A considerable part of the definitive development of the engine is, therefore, entrusted to further tests which are carried out with the engine already mounted on the bodywork, which further increases the time required to perfect the engine, and also the relative costs.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,509,301 shows a chamber for testing engines with a cover shaped like an arc of a circle which can be rotated from an open position to a closed position.
This solution requires an excavation to be made in the floor to house the cover when it is brought to the open position.
Moreover, this solution does not guarantee an efficient heat regulation of the closed environment defined by the cover and therefore does not guarantee the correct thermodynamic conditions for the tests to be carried out. Furthermore, the solution cannot be adopted to modify existing installations.